The future of workplace safety will go beyond implementing more rules, procedures and the never-ending parade of compliance standards. OSHA regulations, while important, are not enough to ensure overall safety. The future of safety will put the focus on positive interactions with employees resulting in improved quality, productivity and safety. Real engagement requires a focus on human performance, human error and embracing an integrated safety culture. With over 20 years of human factors and compliance experience, Tim will demonstrate how it’s possible.

What does OSHA’s 2018 enforcement agenda have in store? What is the status of current agency standards? How will National and Regional Emphasis Programs fit into the OSHA enforcement strategy? These questions and more will be answered, and you’ll learn:

The industry sectors and hazards that OSHA inspectors will focus on in 2018

How OSHA’s new online injury reporting rule is affecting employers

How the recently released OSHA Top 10 list of safety violations can help identify safety policies and practices that could expose your organization to massive liability

Which final rules are on OSHA’s near-term horizon

The increase in penalties and fines that are resulting from OSHA’s mandated inflation adjusted penalty increases

Are you confused about what OSHA requires – and prohibits – in post-accident drug testing and safety incentives under its recent recordkeeping rule? OSHA's new regulatory provisions have changed the legal landscape on how employers can discipline or drug test injured workers and now require employers to train workers on their rights and protected activities. Although the rule doesn’t ban drug testing or incentive programs, it does require employers to ensure that activities cannot be considered anti-retaliatory. This session will address the new mandates and restrictions and what constitutes protected activity and adverse action, and will outline proactive strategies for managing injury cases within the parameters of the new rules.

Who are the most important safety influencers in your organization? Sure, the C-Suite is crucial to chart a course and managers are essential to lead the charge, but supervisors are the true influencers. They are the conduit between the company’s leaders and its employees. Supervisors are tasked with delivering the day-to-day operational results- sometimes against impossible odds- to keep the pipeline moving. Then why are they so often the most undertrained, underutilized, undervalued people in the organization?

We’ll explore proven approaches to advance a supervisor’s safety acumen; how to use focus and influence to shape the outcomes most desired in the workplace. Supervisors will always be required to enforce standards and compliance, but in this talk, methodology geared toward coaching for a different kind of performance- one that encourages employees to replace at-risk behavior with safer, discretionary behavior in the workplace – will be the focus.

Choosing and purchasing the right PPE for electrical arc flash and shock protection is a challenge. Now the new 2018 version of the NFPA 70E Standard for Electrical Safety in the Workplace has made several changes to PPE to bring consistency to the process for selecting the proper PPT for the job and for testing PPE performance.

This session will go over the changes for PPE, including the selection of clothing and PPE whether the Incident Energy method or the PPE category method was used to perform the arc flash risk assessment. It will also cover what to do if there are no labels or arc flash risk assessment.

OSHA’s Lockout/Tagout (Energy Control) Standard is always one of OSHA’s most frequently cited standards, and with the “Amputations National Emphasis Program” continuing through 2018, and LOTO violations continuing to be considered a “high emphasis hazard” that qualify employers into the Severe Violator Enforcement Program, it is critical for employers to get Lockout/Tagout right. While LOTO continues to be an important standard, it also continues to be one of the most misunderstood. This program will highlight the most frequently cited aspects of the LOTO rule, explain some of its most misunderstood provisions, and forecast some potential changes to the rule and OSHA’s enforcement of it.

Participants will learn:

Common mistakes employers make implementing LOTO programs, such as inadequate annual LOTO inspections and Group LOTO

Nuances of the requirements to develop machine-specific LOTO procedures, and share them with contractors working at your site

The mystery behind the Minor Servicing Exception

The controversy around "unexpected energization" in OSHA's LOTO Standard

Forget millennials (well, not completely), the post-millennials are coming to your workplace! Adding to the generational mashup, Generation Z has traits and preferences that are completely different from Generation X, Baby Boomers, and others they will need to work with for safety success. In this session, you'll learn more about the newest generation entering your workforce and strategies for ensuring their participation in your organization's safety program.

Last year, OSHA’s new Walking-Working Surfaces Rule for General Industry went into effect. It updates general industry standards to recognize technology advances and best practices, and adds new equipment requirements. It was written with the intent to standardize fall protection requirements across general industry and construction and to give general industry employers flexibility in choosing protection methods. In many ways, it draws from ANSI Z359, a voluntary consensus equipment standard.

In this session, you’ll learn:

The key differences between existing standards and the new requirements and how to assess your existing program

How the new standards compare with current national consensus standards, including ANSI Z359

What enforcement initiatives are likely to result from OSHA’s adoption of the new rule

Is accountability a dirty word in your organization? Does it conjure vivid images of managers being led one after the other into the Human Resources office, only to be escorted out the door, box in hand? It doesn’t have to be that way. To ensure program success, leaders must first develop, then master accountability measures to drive excellence in safety performance and culture. In this presentation, we will explore the elements necessary to proactively promote accountability in a positive way that doesn’t assign blame, finger-pointing and animosity. Instead, this approach ensures that individuals are held accountable for only the vital performance necessary to succeed.

Workplace safety doesn't exist in a vacuum. Your organizational culture, processes, and challenges all impact your safety program and performance. Whether your company is growing, downsizing, transforming itself for a new generation, or simply trying to stay afloat in an increasingly competitive business climate, the question isn't whether safety will be affected—it's how. As a safety professional, your job is to guide your company's safety efforts through a variety of challenges and opportunities, both internal and external to your organization. Key to success is anticipating the potential impact of business strategies, management decisions, industry trends, and more on your safety culture and taking proactive steps to ensure that workers are not put at risk. In this session, we'll hear from an expert panel on how to broaden your understanding of safety and the organizational factors that impact it in order to drive success in your program.

Join us from 7:30 a.m. to 7:45 a.m. to take a test drive of our award-winning Safety.BLR.com platform. See how you can improve productivity and compliance at your organization with this custom online solution. PLUS, demo attendees will be entered to win one of the hottest new technologies of 2018. Must be present to win!

Through the lens of human space flight and three missions personally flown, astronaut Rick Searfoss will deliver a fascinating look into a benchmark safety-specific program designed for success in high-demand, high-workload, unforgiving and complex systems. Drawing on powerful and positive examples of over 40 years’ experience, Searfoss will provide tools for any high-performance organization to operate more safely and effectively. Searfoss will also share the hard lessons learned from America’s three human space flight tragedies. Attendees will gain a deeper appreciation for wise risk assessment and effective actions in all operations.

General Session | Getting a Seat at the C-Suite: What Every Safety Pro Should KnowPresented by Regina McMichael
9:10 a.m. – 10:10 a.m.

Do you have the tactics to secure management support for your safety program? It can be a battle to fund your initiatives but the key to success is getting and keeping a seat at the decision-making table. In this session, you'll learn how to achieve that connection with the senior leadership at your organization.

We'll discuss how to identify your organization's formal and informal power structures, the traits you need to adopt to effect change, and how to establish and maintain effective communication with your organization's leaders. We will also discuss your own opportunities for leadership and how to implement strategies that will influence your workforce to work together to achieve safety goals.

A robust incident investigation process is critical component of effective safety and health program, providing information to determine the basic cause of an incident and a methodology to prevent a reoccurrence of similar incidents.

In this session, attendees will learn:

The basic concepts of both root cause analysis and the OSHA incident investigation process to assist organizations in identifying causal factors of incidents

How these methodologies can be implemented in any organization to impact not only safety and health but also as a problem-solving tool for any incident.

Applying the tools in a case study to determine basic causes, contributory factors and corrective actions to prevent a recurrence.

Even though the safety profession has been buzzing about “leading indicators” and “leading metrics” for well over a decade, many organizations who’ve embraced the concept still face challenges with identifying and developing measures that really drive performance. This session focuses participants on strategies for developing holistic, sustainable safety metrics that drive high performance. Participants will learn about the importance of distinguishing ordinary performance indicators from KPIs (and even KRIs), as well as strategies and best practices for critically evaluating and prioritizing potential metrics. The session will also discuss strategies for selling middle and top management on improving existing, leading measures, and even convincing resistant management to shift their focus on true safety performance metrics.

OSHA's construction standards for crystalline silica are already in effect, and the more complex requirements for general industry become enforceable in June 2018. The standard cuts the current PEL in half, and requires use of engineering and work practice controls, rather than reliance on respiratory protection. This presentation will outline the requirements under the new rule, sampling strategies, the rule of objective data, development of site-specific exposure control plans, medical surveillance, workers training and more. The highlights of OSHA's new enforcement manual for the rule will also be examined as well as approaches for protecting workers in a cost-effective and feasible manner.

Performance Management & Engagement TrackSafety Culture Kickstarters: Using Social Media and Other Technologies to Get Workers On Board with SafetyPresented by: Francene Scott-Diehl, MPH, CSP, Florida Public Utilities

Your employees are already using social media, so why not use it as a tool to promote your safety program? During this session, you will learn strategies to determine which social media platforms, mobile apps, software and cloud-based technology is appropriate for your workforce. You’ll learn ways to begin using the Internet of Things (IoT) to level up social media and tech strategies to improve your safety culture to achieve the ultimate goals of injury prevention and cost control. Bring your mobile device and specific questions to this session!

With GHS adoption complete, HazCom continues to rank as OSHA’s 2nd most cited standard. Reasons for noncompliance range from deficiencies with Written Plans, to faulty SDS management processes, to ineffective container labeling. And while EHS professionals/employers are still trying to catch their breath from the initial GHS adoption in 2012, they should brace themselves for the potential for more changes ahead, since OSHA has expressed intent to align with GHS Revision 7. This presentation will take a thorough review of some of the most difficult and common compliance challenges, and leave attendees with useful knowledge they can use to improve HazCom management and prepare for any future changes.

Senior management and safety leaders frequently say they desire employee engagement in their safety management processes. Many even purposefully communicate this throughout their organizations and provide forums for employees to voice safety concerns and ideas for safety improvement. Too often, however, these announcements and discussion forums are the extent of an organization’s efforts to engage its workforce in its safety management processes. Unfortunately, many of these organizations find what employee participation their efforts initially garnered soon wane, and may even fizzle out. This session will identify many of the obstacles that hinder safety leaders from gaining and sustaining employee engagement, and it will present strategies for overcoming those obstacles. Most importantly, it will focus participants on developing an active-safety-engagement process rather the traditional, passive, ad-hoc, discussion-oriented means of engagement.

Workplace violence is any act or threat of physical violence, harassment, intimidation or other threatening disruptive behavior that occurs at the work site. It can range from threats and verbal abuse to physical assaults—and even homicide. According to OSHA, two million acts of violence, six million threats and 16 million incidents of harassment take place annually. It affects and involves employees, clients, customers and visitors.

In this session, participants will explore organizational definitions of workplace violence, common warning signs and behaviors of perpetrators, and the prevalence of workplace violence across the United States. Strategies to prepare, respond and recover to incidents of workplace violence will also be discussed, including workable codes of conduct, building relationships and establishing diversity, inclusion and respect in the workplace. By incorporating prevention strategies into the organization’s standard operating procedures, employers can mitigate litigation stemming from workplace violence.

The US Environmental Health and Safety profession is in for disruption on a scale not seen since the arrival of OSHA, perhaps even greater. Technology will revolutionize workplace health and safety practices and the professional skill sets required. Drones will replace humans in observation and inspection routines, not all, but some. Wearables will generate more data about worker health (exertions, fatigue, posture, heart rate, blood pressure, etc.) than previously easily accessible and create privacy issues. Wearables will also produce exposure analytics that may overload EHS staffs.

Professionals will spend less time on the shop floor and more time analyzing risk data and making risk-based decisions. But will all EHS pros be able to take advantage of these tech advances? Will there be a gap between the haves and the have-nots? Will there be the need for as many professionals? (Think driverless trucks). How will the profession’s changing demographics, the leadership of Generation Y, and Millennials affect the use of disruptive technology? ISHN reader research takes a look at the early stages of EHS technology disruption and what lies ahead. ​​

A safety program is complex, and effective recordkeeping provides a concrete basis for successful management. OSHA requires that companies track and report incidents, and keep records of training. In this preconference session, attendees will discuss each part of the recordkeeping standard, and discuss how to integrate it into an effective safety program.

Attendees will learn:

The purpose and requirements of OSHA's recordkeeping standards, including new electronic recordkeeping obligations

The ultimate goal of safety management systems and programs is to minimize risk and the associated costs of accidents and injuries. To reach this goal, risks in an organization must be identified and evaluated to understand their probability for occurring, the resulting effects and what controls are needed.

This risk assessment workshop will be to assist attendees in determining if their current efforts for hazard identification, evaluation and control process are effective. The risk assessment process may vary greatly across an organization, ranging from simple qualitative assessments to complex quantitative analysis with extensive documentation. Each location must determine what measures should be taken to comply with best practices to reduce risk and mitigate the cause of incidents. The risk assessment process should provide evidence that appropriate decision-making captures a fundamental risk-based approach.

In this workshop, attendees will learn how to:

Identify common hazards in organizations

Understand the steps of a risk assessment

Quantify the nature of both probability & severity variable including the various matrices used for this purpose

Speakers

Adele Abrams, Esq., CMSP, an attorney, safety professional and firm president of the Law Offices of Adele L. Abrams P.C. is recognized as a national expert on occupational safety and health. Ms. Abrams heads a ten-attorney firm that represents employers and contractors nationwide in OSHA and MSHA litigation, and provides safety and health training, auditing, and consultation services. She is a Certified Mine Safety Professional, and a Department of Labor–approved trainer. Ms. Abrams is on the adjunct faculty of Catholic University in Washington, DC, where she teaches employment and labor law.

Ms. Abrams is also a professional member of the American Society of Safety Engineers, and is co-author of several safety-related textbooks. She is chair of the National Safety Council’s Business & Industry Division committee on regulatory and legal affairs. She is admitted to the Bars of MD, DC and PA, as well as multiple federal courts including the US Supreme Court.

Eric Conn
Founding Partner
Conn Maciel Carey LLP

Eric J. Conn is a founding partner of the law firm Conn Maciel Carey LLP and Chair of the firm’s national OSHA Workplace Safety Practice Group. Mr. Conn focuses his practice on all aspects of occupational safety and health law. He began his career practicing for more than a decade alongside the former first General Counsel of the OSH Review Commission. Mr. Conn represents employers in inspections, investigations and enforcement actions involving OSHA, state OSH programs, the Chemical Safety Board, EPA and state and local safety related agencies. He also handles all aspects of OSHA litigation, from appeals of citations to criminal prosecutions.

Charles Douros
Senior Consultant
ProAct Safety

Charles J. Douros is senior consultant for ProAct Safety. Charles engages organizations in every major industry on their journey to achieve and sustain excellence in safety performance, organizational development and cultural alignment. Since 2004, he has worked hands-on in the safety and environmental arena with companies in all regions of North America. As a former small business owner, regional director of EHS, and safety consultant, Charles has personally implemented safety performance and cultural improvement processes across many industries. Chuck is a prolific writer of online safety content and has been a frequent contributor to eHow, Business.com, Examiner, CBS News, Boy Scouts of America, Nation’s Restaurant News, Career Tracker and other business & industry sites.

Andy Hosman
Vice President of Operational Risk
Sphera

Andy has more than 18 years of experience in helping companies better understand their risks and improve workplace safety through software and technology solutions. He is currently leading the strategy, design and development of the next generation SpheraCloud™ platform. A technology enthusiast with expertise in the application of data and analytics to drive decision making, Andy holds a BS in geophysical science from the University of Chicago and a MBA from the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University.

Terri Howard
Senior Director of Business Development
FEI Behavioral Health

Terri Howard is responsible for working with FEI corporate clients to ensure they are prepared for, can respond to and recover from a crisis incident. She also coordinates the people support and psychological first aid services for those impacted by crises, and is responsible for developing drills and exercises aimed at testing current plans and procedures. Over the years, Howard has contributed to several international standards and guidelines on crisis management and workplace violence prevention including ASIS, a global community of more than 38,000 security practitioners, and the FBI.

Matthew R. Humphreville has over 20 years of experience as a Compliance Safety and Health Officer with federal OSHA, first as a Safety Specialist and currently as an Industrial Hygienist. He has inspected establishments in the General Industry, Construction, Maritime and Agricultural industries and conducts fatality, referral and complaint investigations and inspections.

Prior to OSHA, he was both a Radiation Health Officer and an Industrial Hygiene Officer in the U.S. Navy. Mr. Humphreville holds a B.S. in Environmental Health Science from Eastern Kentucky University and a M.S. in Industrial Hygiene from the University of New Haven. He is both a Certified Industrial Hygienist and a Certified Safety Professional.

Dave Johnson
Editor
Industrial Safety & Hygiene News

Dave Johnson has been chief editor of Industrial Safety & Hygiene News magazine since 1980, back in the days when Ronald Reagan was trying to trim the regulatory thicket. His first interview was with an official of the American Conservative Union’s “STOP OSHA” campaign in a Washington office.

Dave has gone on create ISHN’s White Paper reader survey on the State of the EHS Nation, ISHN’s web site in 1995, and has written articles and commentaries for more than 440 issues of ISHN. Dave has a degree in magazine journalism from Ohio University.

Regina McMichael, CSP, CET
President
The Learning Factory

At 20 years old, Regina McMichael got the call that her husband had died falling off a roof at a jobsite he was working. That was the day her safety career started. At an age when most people are just starting to think about what it means to be an adult, Regina went from planning a funeral, to investigating her late husband's accident, to transforming her workers' compensation benefit into a university degree in safety, to participating in the writing of the OSHA fall protection guidelines that could have prevented her husband's death.

Phil Mole is the former Global EHS Coordinator for John Crane, Inc. In that role, Phil developed and facilitated trainings on a variety of subjects, presenting to large groups and conducting intimate tool box talks. Phil's professional accreditation includes: National Institute of Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) from 1995 to 1997, American Society of Safety Engineers, National Association of Environmental Managers, OSHA 30-hour training (2012) and ISO/OHSAS Internal Auditor training (2012).

Tim Page-Bottorff is an inspirational certified safety professional who brings valuable knowledge from over 20 years of occupational health, safety and environmental experience. He has received the coveted ASSE Safety Professional of the Year for Region II and also for the Arizona Chapter. His industry accomplishments include teaching as an authorized OSHA Outreach Trainer for UCSD and an Adjunct Faculty Member, Asbestos Inspector/Management Planner. He is the ASSE Region II Vice President and Past President of the Arizona Chapter. He also belongs to the Training and Communications, Consultants Practice Specialties and is a member of the military branch. Mr. Page-Bottorff has consulted with hundreds of clients at thousands of sites across several industries, including Georgia Pacific, Land O’ Lakes, Mosaic, Honda, International Paper, and Procter and Gamble.

Patricia Reed, CSP is the Health Environmental Safety and Sustainability (HESS) Manager with KIK Corporation, a specialty chemical manufacturer for household and commercial products. The site Patricia works at is an OSHA PSM and EPA RMP covered facility. Patricia heads up all PSM and RMP initiatives for extremely hazardous substances and ensures compliance with the US Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Transportation Security Administration (TSA).

Michael Rubin, Esq., CSP
Partner
Goldberg Segalla

Michael Rubin is chair of Goldberg Segalla’s OSHA and Worksite Safety Practice Group. A Certified Safety Professional (CSP), Michael focuses his practice on issues involving occupational safety and health law. He advises and represents employers across multiple industries in connection with OSHA inspections, investigations, and enforcement actions. He has on-the-ground experience managing accident investigations, negotiating for the withdrawal and settlement of citations, contesting citations, and litigating matters before the Occupational Safety & Health Review Commission — including trials and appeals. Michael has completed the OSHA-30 Construction and General Industry training, and regularly counsels employers on safety compliance and best practice strategies for minimizing risk.

Derek Sang has been involved with the Flame-Resistant Clothing industry in a variety of roles from the service, manufacturing and garment sides of the business for over 20 years.

The first 10 years of his career Derek worked directly with end-users developing and implementing Flame Resistant Clothing programs specific to the customer’s hazards. Over the past 11 years Derek has worked closely with fortune 1000 companies educating them on the various fabrics, FR technologies and the dynamics of Arc Flash and Flash Fire hazards as they look to develop FR Clothing programs.

In his current position as a Technical Training Manager, Derek has developed over 40 hours of training curriculum and conducted over 250 educational and informational seminars for Bulwark University.

Francene Scott-Diehl is the Safety & Compliance Manager for Florida Public Utilities. She is an accomplished 20+year safety professional honored by National Safety Council in 2011 as a “Top 40 under 40” safety professional in the field. Her past safety roles have included municipal utilities, warehousing and distribution, transportation and service sectors. She is a PhD candidate at the Indiana University of Pennsylvania and has served as an Adjunct Instructor for the University.

Fran holds a Masters of Public Health, MPH, from the University of South Florida and received her undergraduate degree in Occupational Safety Engineering & Technology from Murray State University in Kentucky. She holds the Certified Safety Professional (CSP), Certified Environmental, Safety and Health Trainer (CET) and (CDS) Certified Director of Safety certifications.

Gary L. Sculli
Author, Building a High-Reliability Organization: A Toolkit for Success

Gary L. Sculli brings a unique and diverse perspective to patient safety. He is a Registered Nurse with a Master’s Degree in Nursing Administration and has worked in multiple clinical specialties to include leadership and management. He has served as an officer in the United States Air Force Nurse Corps. Sculli is also a former airline pilot for Northwest Airlines (now Delta) and has developed and taught Crew Resource Management (CRM) programs in both aviation and healthcare. He currently works nationally in patient safety dealing primarily with matters of safety culture and patient safety program assessment. Gary has authored two books for HCPro: Soaring to Success - Taking Crew Resource Management form the Cockpit to the Nursing Unit published in 2011 and Building a High Reliability Organization - A Toolkit for Success published in 2015.

Rick Searfoss
Astronaut/Space Shuttle Commander

As an astronaut with three space missions, Colonel Rick Searfoss shares with only a handful of people in history some of the most unique human experiences possible. In his career he has led many different teams, including commanding the most complex science research space mission ever, mission STS-90 on Columbia. He also piloted two other space flights.

Prior to becoming an astronaut Colonel Searfoss was a fighter pilot and test pilot, with over 6200 hours flying time in 86 different types of aircraft. He was also the number one graduate in his Air Force Academy class and earned a master’s degree at the California Institute of Technology. Rick has held executive level positions in the aerospace industry and now works regularly with numerous entrepreneurial space ventures, including test flying the world’s only liquid propellant rocketplane. For the past decade as a noted leadership and innovation speaker, he has shared his unique perspective on peak performance with organizations worldwide. Rick is the author of LIFTOFF: An Astronaut Commander’s Countdown for Purpose-Powered Leadership.

In his spare time Rick enjoys flying, science fiction, backpacking, cycling, and running. He and his wife Julie have three daughters and reside in California.

Fran’s career started in 1973 as a loss control consultant and he spent 18 years with several major insurance carriers. After graduating from college, he spent several years in the railroad and electronics industry. He is currently a project leader for three Willis Blue projects where he provides safety and risk control consulting services for manufacturing, construction, institutional and real estate accounts throughout North America.

Prior to joining Willis Towers Watson in 1999, Fran was the Manager of Safety for Washington Steel Corporation for over eight years where he was responsible for safety, industrial hygiene, workers’ compensation and security for the specialty steel maker. He is also a member of the Western PA Chapter of the American Society of Safety Engineers (ASSE), was the Past President (2004-2005) of the chapter, and is the author of the chapter entitled “Cost Benefit Analysis for Fleet Safety Training” in the ASSE “Safety Handbook.”

Barry Spurlock is an assistant professor at Eastern Kentucky University where he teaches graduate and undergraduate classes on safety management, safety performance measurement, workers’ compensation, safety-related legal classes, and courses on hazard recognition and control. He is also the managing member and attorney for Spurlock Law, PLLC. Prior to his present position in academia, Mr. Spurlock was a full-time attorney where he represented employers in a variety of employment matters involving OSHA, FMLA, ADA, harassment and discrimination.

Mr. Spurlock’s current law practice also includes counseling and training employers on compliance and proactively avoiding litigation and citations. Barry is a board-certified safety professional, and before practicing law he worked for over 16 years as an occupational safety and risk management professional in the food, steel and workers’ compensation insurance industries. He has also served as an adjunct faculty member for Indiana University since 2002, where he has developed curricula and taught numerous undergraduate courses in occupational safety management.

Please contact phone number at the bottom of this page for registrations.